In recent years, due to improvement of full-color print technology for printing an electronic video signal on paper, a high quality print comparable to a silver salt photograph has been produced. A sublimation type thermal transfer printer which is a typical example of these printers has widely prevailed as an audio-visual oriented printer for printing a video signal. An ordinary video printer has a function of capturing a video signal output from a video movie camera or the like in its frame memory so that a desired shot can be selected from a video movie tape and printed (unlike a still camera).
Further, because digital recording has been prevailing in the video movie camera, the quality of signal source for the printer has been improved.
In the background of such a digital camera technology, as a tool capable of fetching a high quality still picture into a personal computer as easily as an ordinary camera is used, an input device called a digital still camera (hereinafter referred to as DSC) has been rapidly prevailing so that the input source for the printer has been diversified.
The current DSCs have various interfaces. Most of them have an interface for fetching data into the personal computer like RS232C and additionally, have an analog video output and the like for displaying the picture on a TV monitor. In addition to a nonvolatile flash memory card as a memory for storing pictures, use of a removable memory card has increased.
Although, initially, the DSC is positioned as an input device for fetching data into the personal computer, it has been departing from the personal computer so that it is becoming an independent digital type camera. If it is intended to process an input picture to an art piece, the picture can be fetched into the personal computer, processed and printed. However, a demand for connecting the camera directly to a printer and making an easy print has been increasing. Further, in addition to the combination of the DSC and video printer, other applications of the DSC such as monitoring a picture taken with the DSC by enlarging it on a monitor screen, transmitting a picture taken with the DSC through a mobile phone and the like have been widely spreading.
FIG. 21 shows a structure of conventional DSC and video printer. When it is intended to print a picture taken with the DSC not through a personal computer, first of all, the DSC 801 is connected to a video printer 802 through a video cable 803. Then, a display feed key 804 is operated so as to output for printing a video signal of a picture to the video output of the digital camera. If that picture is output, a fetch key 805 on the video printer 802 is pressed to capture a video signal thereof. If it is intended to print two pictures on a single paper, this procedure is repeated. If capturing of video signals for the two pictures is completed, a double-screen multi-print key 806 is pressed, so that the two pictures are printed on a single paper.
FIG. 22 shows a structure of conventional DSC and home TV. The DSC 801 is connected to the home TV 807 through a video cable 808. By operating a display feed key 804 of the DSC 801, a picture to be displayed on the home TV 807 can be changed.
FIG. 23 shows a structure of conventional DSC, mobile phone and modem. The DSC 801 is connected to a modem 809 through a RSC232C interface and the modem 809 is connected to a mobile phone 810. After communication is established by operating the modem using AT command, the digital camera 801 transmits a selected picture through the mobile phone 810.
The structures of the conventional arts of FIGS. 21, 22, 23 have a problem in which the digital camera is not available for taking pictures during the aforementioned print, display, transmission or the like.
Further, in case when the double-screen multi-print is executed with the structure shown in FIG. 21, it is very troublesome to print the pictures in a condition that a picture taken with a camera held horizontally is not mixed with a picture taken with the camera held vertically.
Further, if request for reprint of pictures under the structure of FIG. 21 comes from multiple persons, it is troublesome to sort printed pictures for each order after the printing is completed.
Another object of the present invention is to unify a vertical direction of each picture when multi-screen print is executed, namely, so that a vertically long picture is not mixed with a horizontally long picture in a single paper.
Still another object of the present invention is to facilitate sorting when reprint of pictures is carried out.
When a picture taken with the DSC is input into the conventional printer by analog video signals, very fast data transmission is carried out so that, for example, under the NTSC method, a single picture can be transmitted in 1/30 seconds. However, because the interface is analog and color signal range is narrow, a high quality print in which the proper performance of the DSC is exerted cannot be achieved.
Further, because such an interface having many lines as a parallel interface is physically difficult to attach to a small DSC, usually the interface available for the DSC is limited to a serial interface such as RS232C and the like, so that it takes very long, for example, several tens seconds, to transmit a single picture.
Further, people may want a way of use like the conventional silver-salt camera, in which after a film roll (24 frames or 36 frames) is finished, by bringing that roll to a photo lab, all-shot simultaneous print is obtained. However, if a similar method is tried, because usually a printer frame memory has only a capacity for a single picture, several tens pictures stored in the camera memory are transmitted to the printer in several tens seconds per a single picture and then each picture is printed in several tens seconds. The same procedure is then repeated for each of the several tens pictures. Inconvenience may result from operating the digital camera, printer and the like.
Even if the transfer speed is increased in near future, print is desirably initiated until several tens prints are completed. Therefore, that inconvenience is not eliminated.
Further, because the DSC needs to be operated for data transmission during a print, the DSC's battery is wastefully consumed and during the print operation, the DSC cannot be used as a camera for taking a picture.
Further, because communication between the DSC and printer is desirably established until the print is finished, the DSC cannot be used as a camera until the print is finished. Because the DSC is actuated for a long time for this purpose, the DSC's battery is consumed for purposes other than taking pictures.
Further, there is no standardized format in an interface for directly connecting the DSC to the printer in digital basis and most interfaces are specified for each particular product, so that general use of a conventional interface for the digital camera is unexpected. Even if the interface is unified in industry, because a number of picture elements output by the DSC increases every year, the number of picture elements is difficult to be standardized. Therefore, under the conventional art, a general-use printer for various users is difficult to produce.
When a structure for transferring data to a printer through a PC card as proposed in the present invention is employed, most of the above described problems are solved but the following new problems occur.
The user may not want to print all pictures recorded in the PC card corresponding to a single film roll but often wants to print only some of them. Particularly as the capacity of the PC card increases and new pictures are additionally stored subsequent to old pictures without deleting them, this tendency is intensified. The conventional printer structure may not have a convenient way for selected pictures to be printed.
Further, a number of picture elements of taken picture data varies depending on DSCs manufactured by various makers and the number of the picture elements do not always coincide with the number of picture elements printed by the printer.
Further, because in the DSCs of various manufacturers, a way for naming a picture file and a sub-directory for storing files varies depending thereon, the printer cannot be used generally among every DSC.